Shafaq News/ On Tuesday, the Iraqi government decided to postpone the release of census results for the disputed areas until they can be compared with the 1957 census.

Former Kurdish MP, Bakhtiar Shawis, told Shafaq News that the Council of Ministers has decided to delay the results until the comparison process is completed, emphasizing that this step is crucial to ensure the accuracy of demographic data in the disputed regions.

Conducting a census in the disputed areas is a sensitive issue in Iraq, as authorities seek to determine the population percentages of various groups amid political disputes over the administration and jurisdiction of these areas.

On Monday, the Iraqi Ministry of Interior rejected a request from the Kurdistan Regional Government’s disputed areas authority to postpone the census in these regions, asserting that the census would proceed as scheduled without delay.

Earlier, Head of the Census Operations Room, Diyaa Kazem, outlined that the census framework, set by the Council of Ministers in its last session, mandates the inclusion of all ethnic groups in disputed areas, specifically Arab, Kurdish, and Turkmen communities.

Residents of these regions feel that the omission could affect their demographic representation and potentially reinforce the demographic shifts that have occurred since 2017.

The general population census will take place on November 20 and 21. Iraq last conducted a nationwide population census in 1987, followed by a 1997 count that excluded the Kurdistan Region. For years, the country has relied on estimates from unofficial research institutes and organizations. In 2022, the Planning Ministry estimated Iraq’s population to be over 42 million.